Still, Article 63, for lack of other provision, constitutes progress, which, however, does not seem as yet to be near realization. This Article provides, in effect, that the manner in which Prussian votes at the disposal of the provinces shall be distributed must be regulated by a Prussian State Law; and Article 168 provides that until the adoption of this law but, at the most for only a year, all the Prussian votes in the Reichsrat may be cast by members of the State Cabinet. This law should already have been adopted and applied. This has not been done, however, and the Prussian government has asked and obtained a modification of Article 168, which prolongs the delay accorded to Prussia and gives it till July 1, 1921, to pass this law. In support of this request Prussia claimed that the reduction of its total number of votes in the Reichsrat to twenty-two made the distribution of this number among the provinces more difficult. In reality, however, the Prussian government under the Republic remains true to its traditional tactics, which consist in opposing all development and progress by means of the most obstinate passivity. Until the new state of representation is adopted the twenty-two Prussian votes will be cast by the members of the Prussian Cabinet or by delegates named by it. * * * * * The Reichsrat has the right to create its own committees.[47] But the privileges which certain states, particularly Prussia, enjoyed in the committees of the old Bundesrat are suppressed; particularly as no state may hereafter have more than one vote on any committee. (Article 62.) The Reichsrat, in contrast to the Reichstag, has not the right freely to convene. It must be convoked by the Cabinet of the Reich. Nevertheless, it has a right to convoke itself if the demand is made by a third of its members. It is the Cabinet that presides over the Reichsrat and its committees; but the Cabinet has not the right to vote in either of these. The Reichsrat has the right and the power to demand that the members of the Cabinet be present at its meetings or at the meetings of its committees. It may invite there the Chancellor and the Ministers and the latter are obliged to attend. Those invited have the right at all times to be heard in the deliberations. By this means the Reichsrat has the possibility of participating in the policies of the Reich. It is true that no fixed influence is guaranteed to it by the Constitution. What authority it will be able to exercise in the future will depend on the quality of its work and on the personalities by which the states will be represented. The Cabinet of the Reich, like all the members of the Reichsrat, is authorized to propose measures in the Reichsrat. The plenary sessions of the latter, in contrast to those of the Bundesrat, are theoretically public; its committee meetings are not. Decisions are made by a simple majority of those voting. 3.--POWERS OF THE REICHSRAT.